FEATURED SPONSORS

Reports: Ousted Paterno Contacts King & Spalding Partner Sollers

Posted by Brian Baxter

CORRECTION: 11/11/11, 1:15 p.m., EST. A previous version of this story misspelled Sollers's name. We regret the error.

News outlets reported late Thursday that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno—fired Tuesday night by the university's board of trustees as a result of a growing sex abuse scandal involving crimes allegedly committed by a former top assistant—has reached out to King & Spalding partner J. Sedwick Sollers III, past chair of the firm's special matters and government investigations practice group.

Advisers close to Paterno contacted Sollers on Thursday, according to late day reports by NBC News and the New York Daily News. Paterno, 84, reportedly has yet to meet with Sollers and a retainer agreement has not been signed. Sollers did not immediately respond to an e-mail sent to him by The Am Law Daily on Thursday night.

Dan McGinn, a crisis public relations specialist withTMG Strategies that Joe Paterno hired to help cope with the media onslaught unleashed by the Sandusky scandal, said in an e-mail to The Am Law Daily that no attorney had yet been retained.

The Am Law Daily reported Wednesday on the growing number of lawyers advising various parties involved in the fallout from a 23-page grand jury report released by Pennsylvania prosecutors over the weekend charging longtime Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky with 40 counts of sexual abuse in connection with his alleged assaults on eight boys over a 15-year period. Two Penn State administrators—athletic director Tim Curley and vice president of business and finance Gary Schultz—have been accused of covering up Sandusky's alleged crimes. All three men have insisted they are innocent and have pledged to fight the charges.

Joshua Lock, a partner at Goldberg Katzman in Harrisburg, has been identified in news reports earlier this week as advising Paterno. But Lock is also representing former Penn State president Graham Spanier, who, like Paterno, was fired by the university's board of trustees Tuesday night.